


Masters of One Shots

by operatorhappypills



Category: Masters of Sex
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, One Shot, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-03-25 10:03:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13831872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/operatorhappypills/pseuds/operatorhappypills
Summary: This will be a collection of any one shots I write for the television series Masters of Sex. I will add more tags and characters as I go on.





	1. February 14, 1970

**Author's Note:**

> Every chapter's title will be a date. Chapters + dates will not be linear.

Virginia Johnson gingerly steps down the stairs of her townhouse, moving stray, falling hair out of her face with one pointed finger. Upon approaching the kitchen, she expects to find her husband making a pot of coffee or even making scrambled eggs for them - as he often did each time he woke before her. But not this morning. William Masters is sitting at the table, relaxing back into the chair, one leg crossed over the other, while he's sipping coffee and reading the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. His reading glasses hang low on his nose and Virginia muses over how he still manages to look dignified and _proud_ in the early morning. Bill finally senses her presence as his eyes look up to meet her's and he nearly sputters his coffee and swiftly uncrosses his leg in order to stand. Okay, maybe not so dignified.  
  


"I didn't hear you come downstairs," he explains while checking his lap for coffee stains.  
  


"Are you alright?" she asks suspiciously. Bill's eyes dart left and back to her, but Virginia knows him too well. She follows his gaze to...  
  


Her mouth parts and she almost laughs at the vibrant bouquet of flowers sitting on the kitchen counter in an elegant glass vase. There are a few red roses, but there's also lavender roses, gardenias, hydrangeas, and a few stocks of heather, from what she can see.

  
"Oh," is all Virginia can let out.

  
"Happy Valentines Day, Gin," Bill murmurs sheepishly. 

  
Virginia can feel her face break into a wide smile, touched by the unexpected gesture.

  
"Thank you, Bill. They're beautiful." Virginia kisses Bill on the cheek and the side of his mouth tugs upward into a half smile.

  
"I know I always considered this holiday as frivolous. But we're married now and I wanted to get something for the occasion. To make up for lost years, I suppose you could say."

  
She crosses over to examine her gift more carefully, smelling the rose that's closest to her. Bill trails closely behind, carefully observing her reactions.

  
"The florist on 7th Street assured me he'd be able to arrange something with the right message. You can imagine how alien I felt. My experience is red roses and that's the end of it."  
  


Turning her body to face him, Virginia points out, "Lavender roses means 'love at first sight'."

  
Bill's cheeks flush and he looks away, clearing his throat, "Yes. They do." He picks an imaginary piece of lint off his white t-shirt.  
  


Perhaps gaining his confidence, he returns her gaze with a small smile. "The hydrangeas are for your ability to understand me, gardenias are for your loveliness, and the heather for my admiration for you."

  
"William Masters the Romantic. I never would've thought. I love them, Bill. I really do. They'll look nice on the dining room table."

  
"There's, um, one more," he interjects and his hand slides by to pick a single honeysuckle out from the bouquet. "It means --"

  
Virginia finishes his sentence for him, "Devoted affection."

  
She stares at it for a moment, remembering lying in a field with an army captain so many years ago. Devoted, yes, but to somebody else. For a brief second, her stomach twists.

  
Bill lingers for a moment, then, "I asked the florist if he could include one. I...I remember what you told me. And I'd like you to associate it with something else now."

  
His hand feels warm on her lower back, and perhaps in the past, this familiarity would've terrified her. Not anymore. Devoted affection - Virginia is beginning to see what that means. The metal band on her finger doesn't feel like a trap or a facade. They share a look in understanding, and Virginia nods, somewhat overwhelmed in her own affection towards her husband. Bill smiles again, looking relieved.  
  


They break contact and the atmosphere shifts to a lighter one. Bill turns back towards the kitchen table to retrieve his coffee cup. "Now...what should I make for breakfast?" he asks her.

  
Virginia considers this, and then examines him, looking at the unshaven stubble on his cheek, the way his throat moves when he swallows, the chest hair that's peeping out of his shirt, until she trails further down.

  
Then, Virginia mentions slyly, "I was hoping you'd still be in bed when I woke up this morning."

  
Bill's shoulders ever-so-slightly perk up, attuned to her words, just as much as she is attuned to his body.

  
Coffee and breakfast forgotten, Bill replies, "Well...I think we can fix that."

 


	2. August 15, 1969

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set between episodes 9 and 10 of season four.

If someone were to walk into the Reproductive Biology Research Foundation, they'd see two people clinging to each other in William Masters's office, arms entangled, bodies almost enmeshed into one, visible only by the single lamp near the bar cart that's barely illuminating the room.

 

"Mm, come over tonight. Just for a little while." Virginia murmurs into Bill's neck. She kisses along his jugular, and faint traces of his aftershave still linger on him from that morning, when he shaved in her bathroom. His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows. When did goodbyes become this hard?

 

"Virginia, you know I can't. I'm watching the children while Libby is out of town and I don't want to leave John alone too long with Jenny and Howie." He pulls his neck away from her lips, checking his watch, and then turning his head to look at the elevators.

 

"Plee-ease." Her lips close on around his earlobe, and she knows she almost has him when his back straightens and his body tenses - a telltale sign of him trying to restrain the first pulses of arousal.

 

His focus turns back to her, his gaze darker. Outwardly, Bill may have changed, but Virginia is still familiar with him. It was like coming home after a long time and seeing everything still as it was before leaving. Which is a relief, considering how increasingly worried she was becoming over her tentative grasp on all things William Masters lately.

 

"I missed you," Virginia says, suddenly sober. "All those months, every night..." Her thumb traces over his cheekbone, close to a new wrinkle at the corner of his eye.

 

She never got a chance to tell him. Between the night they got back from Topeka and then getting work and legal matters in order, any time spent alone with Bill was spent kissing and touching and re-exploring, even though Virginia remembered every hair and freckle on his body.

 

"It...it was hard," Bill nods in agreement, "Especially when you'd wear things like this," gesturing to her suede mini-skirt and knee-high boots.  


  
Virginia takes the opportunity to unwrap herself from Bill and perch herself on top of his desk, languidly crossing her legs, making sure her skirt hitches up ever so slightly...

 

  
"These?" she asks in mock innocence, and not so accidentally tracing his inner knee with the toe of her boot. There's the slightest tremble underneath his pant leg. The best thing about winding Bill up is seeing when he'll finally snap and give in, like the rumbling that comes before the storm. It's a small victory whenever Virginia can elicit parted lips, closed eyes, or a low groan that Bill can't hold back.  


  
Virginia has to suppress a smile when Bill carefully uncrosses her legs with his hands. He meets her eyes again but then trails his vision down to her mouth.

 

"And when did you start to favor bright red lipstick? That shade is...very hard to ignore."

  
To prove his point, Bill leans in for a kiss, but Virginia turns away, chuckling lowly.

  
"I'm not just talking about sex, though. I'm marrying you for other reasons too."

 _  
I love you for other reasons too_ , she wants to say, but doesn't. The words sit uncomfortably in her mind, but by the way Bill's features softens, she knows she doesn't have to say it.

  
Instead, she takes a path that's more familiar to her and hooks three fingers into his belt, pulls his navel closer to her, locking her legs around the spot on the back of his knees.

  
"Compromise is the key, isn't it?"

  
Bill's lips keep inching towards her's, trying to find their target.

  
"Libby returns on Monday morning. You can bring the girls over for Sunday dinner."

  
Virginia smiles. "Ok."

  
“But you can’t spend the night, Virginia. As much as I’d like you to. I don’t want any of the children walking in on us in bed before we have a chance to tell them about us."

  
“That’s fair. But, in that case...”

  
She casually starts undoing his belt, the clinking of it making her mouth water so much she has to swallow.

  
"Here?" Bill asks, surprised, raising his eyebrows.

  
"Everyone has left. I've explained to Guy it was alright to leave before us," Virginia explains as she pulls his zipper down. Words suddenly don't seem as important.

  
"Yes, but -" Bill stops midsentence when Virginia slips a hand past and cups his cock through his boxers. His hips involuntarily jerk into her hand before his body relaxes into her touch, and he's looking up at the ceiling as if he can find his self-control there.

  
Bill stands there for a moment, stomach rising and falling with quickened breath as he grows just a little harder. She's waiting for catharsis, the moment where he'll crash his lips onto her's and jerk her hips closer to his. It doesn't come. Virginia stops, loosens her grip on him.

  
"I suppose we don't have to if you don't want to."

  
Bill's head snaps down, and he grabs the wrist of her withdrawing hand. "Don't tease," he growls.

  
Finally. A swell of arousal travels jolts through her stomach while she waits for Bill to make the next move.

  
"These turtlenecks are damn frustrating," Bill tugs on the collar and kisses her neck as Virginia dips her hand into his boxers, past the curls, and starts to stroke him. He sucks on the spot on her neck that makes her writhe against him; a place she didn't know she had until he discovered it during an exploratory night at the Park Plaza, years ago.

 

  
"Just think of our small separation as an opportunity for the male subject to recuperate,” he grumbles against her neck, referring to his lagging arousal. Virginia didn't mind. It gives her time to have Bill's hands on her a little longer before she has to go home to an empty bed that still smells like him. The truth is, Virginia needed to recover, too -- her lips are somewhat swollen from his hungry kisses, and while he was never rough in his attention, her breasts are tender and carry some marks of his eagerness.

 

  
"It's okay. I've been very demanding of you for the past three days, haven't I?" Her hand travels further down still, past the base of his cock, to let her fingers graze against his balls. A low whine escapes from Bill's throat, and Virginia feels Bill's head nod against her.

 

  
At that, Bill's hands creep up her skirt to fumble at her underwear, and once Virginia slightly lifts her weight off the desk, he drags them down the length of her legs before discarding them on an empty corner of his desk. He moves his hand between her legs, does an experimental touch of her flesh by letting his thumb brush over her clitoris. Bill gives a satisfied grunt, apparently over how wet she already is. It only serves to make the hot pool that's gathering at the base of her spine grow stronger.

 

  
Bill shrugs out of his sports coat with her help, but there's a slight struggle with his pants until she yanks them down to mid-thigh. Bill pauses for a moment as his fingers run along the leather of her boots, letting his blood flow catch up with his brain. Virginia watches with piqued interest and files the information away for later use.

 

  
  
The air becomes considerably heavier when Bill grasps himself and aligns the tip of his cock against Virginia's entrance, guiding it up and down through her folds to slicken the head. It's almost more than Virginia can stand when it rubs against the tiny bundle of nerves at the top -- she's close to begging when he finally begins to slide in, past the initial ring of resistance, before settling inside. They both let out a breath they didn't know they were holding, and every atom in Virginia's being seems fuzzy until the sensation of Bill's hand sliding around her lower back shakes some of the feelings. They carefully readjust their limbs, cautious not to knock anything over, and with Bill's help, Virginia manages to lean back slightly for more comfort.  
  


  
"Is -- is this okay?" he breathes, referring to the angle. His pupils are blown, so dilated by the dimmed room and arousal that they almost seem black.

 

Speaking suddenly seems difficult, like a skill she's never learned.

 

  
"You feel good...you feel _right,"_ she somehow manages. 

 

  
A growl rumbles in his chest, and when he finally lands his lips on her's, their teeth click together uncomfortably, but the small pain is forgotten when Bill finally begins to move. She grabs at the nape of his neck just as she parts her mouth to invite Bill's tongue in, and it dips in, running along her own before back out, tracing along the rim of her mouth. He's more interested in her bottom lip, it turns out, and he closes down on it greedily.

 

Once they establish a proper rhythm, Virginia digs her boots in more to get him closer, to move quicker. Anything to get _more_ of him. A particularly firm thrust causes her to cry out, and it feels nice to not be hushed, worried about a keen ear somehow deducing that the moans belong to two people engaged in adultery. 

 

  
Nails dig into his shoulders possessively.

 

The proximity causes Bill to stop kissing her and bury his head into the juncture between her collarbone and neck. She closes her eyes and focuses only on all the parts where he's touching her, the parts where synapses seem to spark and jump. She wishes they were in her bed, so she could feel his weight on top of her, warm, naked skin against her's, with an open window to let the August heat flow...

 

  
She's clinging to him so tightly, heels desperately hooked around the back of his thighs, trying to get him deeper, that he can only manage short, sharp thrusts.

 

Just a year ago, she resented him for seeming to fill every crevice of her consciousness (and sometimes subconsciousness because dreams weren't always a safe refuge either). No matter what she did, he was always there, just at the edge, having made a home in her head without her permission. Alcohol was the only thing that seemed to blur his presence, and every time she slept with some man and caught herself thinking of Bill when she closed her eyes, she promised that she'd drink more next time before stumbling into bed. But it never worked, even as she tried to find her pleasure with the least amount of contact possible. It became so mechanical that there were times where she seemed to float out of her body and watch herself until her orgasm brought her back and she would barely be aware of the man beneath her as she quickly disentangled herself to leave.

 

She said it'd take a violent wrenching to tear them apart, and she was surprised at how empty it felt when it did happen -- when he was not there to fill the gaps within her.

 

 _It's a strange thing to need someone_ , she quietly concedes in her hazy mind, although she knew it was something more significant than need.

 

Virginia glances over at the elevator and realizes that anyone who comes on this floor would be able to see them rutting against each other like animals on Bill's desk. There's no place to hide.

 

 _Good. Let them see us_ , Virginia revels, _Let them see that we belong only to each other_.

 

When she lifts her legs higher, her feet resting on Bill's waist, his pubis starts grinding satisfyingly against her own, and she feels him nudging at her cervix with every push of his hips.

 

"Bill," she gasps against his neck, as she feels herself tightening. His breathing is ragged, but he doesn't stop his pace, not even when she makes a fistful of his hair and draws a deep inhale to smell the sweat that's starting to form along his jugular and mingling with his musky aftershave in order to remind herself that it is, indeed, Bill and not some alcohol-induced hallucination.

 

_It's Bill. Bill Bill Bill Bill Bill Bill  
_

 

The ache draws into an intense crescendo, and she comes, _hard_ , harder than she thought she would, given how frequently he's made her do so in the past few days.

 

Bill moans along with her, but the familiar, frantic shakiness of his hips that signals he's close hasn't yet arrived. A hand finds it's way past the elastic band of his boxers that's still trapped around his thighs, and digs her nails into his ass, as she rides out the last fading throbs.

 

Bill's right arm, the one that was precariously balancing them, removes itself from the surface of the desk to wrap around her lower back, and Virginia very nearly lands hard on her spine until her forearm catches her. Bill doesn't seem to notice as his movements start to become jerky, and he hesitates for a moment, perhaps wondering if it would be easier if he finished in her hand or on the inside of her thigh, but Virginia encourages him by keeping her legs firmly locked around his.

  
  
  
Bill shoves himself in one last time, before stilling, and coming with a strangled sob that reverberates from the top of her jawline, straight to her eardrum. They let themselves fall against the desk, waiting until their heartbeats and breathing return to some semblance of normal. Bill has already softened inside her, but she still misses him when he pulls out.

  
  
  
The spiral wire of a stray notebook begins to dig into Virginia's shoulder, causing her to shift uncomfortably.

  
  
  
"Maybe we should've used the exam room bed," Bill says, voicing the thought before she could. He lifts himself off of her and helps her sit up straight. He bends and stretches backward, trying to work out the cramps that must be in his back.  
  
  
Virginia has to chuckle, "Yes, but didn't this remind you of that one time, in 1963, that hotel in Chicago...?"  
  
  
Bill grins, boyishly, and Virginia's heart clamps unexpectedly. Although they're much more frequent now, drawing a smile from Bill hasn't lost its satisfaction. It fades though, as Virginia continues to laugh.  
  
  
"What?"  
  
  
"My lipstick is smeared all over your mouth," she explains as her thumb swipes along the corner of his lips, picking up some of the residue.  
  
  
Bill's cheeks redden slightly, visible even in the darkness. She spots more lipstick marks peppered along his neck.

  
"It's a good look on me, I hope."

  
"Oh, very much so."

  
Which is true. Virginia hopes to replicate it once they're alone together again.  
  
  
He offers her an amused look, before sliding the box of tissues over, and then her underwear. 

  
"Come on," Virginia says, "We can freshen up a little in the bathroom before we leave. You can't go back looking like...that."

  
They fix their clothes, and Bill shuts off the last light before picking up his nearly forgotten briefcase. Ever the gentleman, he holds his office door open for her as they leave.

  
"So," Bill begins, "I was thinking about spaghetti for dinner on Sunday..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to thank ethanhart100 from tumblr for putting together a timeline for the Masters of Sex series. (https://ethanhart100.tumblr.com/post/168242650384/understanding-the-masters-of-sex-timeline)  
> For reference, August 15, 1969 was actually a Friday so, for a timeline stickler, I'm grateful that it played into the story (well, porn-without-plot) so well.
> 
> Lastly, that event in 1963 in Chicago that Virginia references is just made up - I don't have a fanfiction written for that or anything. It can be whatever you want it to be. ;)


End file.
